F1’s Drive to Survive, Season 8 – Christian Horner’s last hurrah and other key takeaways

Season 8 won’t change anyone’s opinion

Long credited for its instrumental role in F1’s mainstream breakthrough in recent years, Box to Box Films has stuck to its usual recipe that made Drive to Survive its most enduring sports documentary series. Focusing on one key storyline per episode, it stitches together the events of the 2025 season with a great deal of unseen behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with drivers and team bosses and additional context from talking heads Will Buxton and Claire Williams.

Drive to Survive is unashamedly aimed at attracting new fans to the sport rather than placating die-hards, and Season 8 is no different. If you are reading this, chances are you belong in the latter category. So, if you weren’t a fan of the previous iterations, you won’t suddenly become one now.

But if you don’t mind the at-times sticky, narrative sauce poured over the plat de résistance that was the 2025 season, then it is still worth staying for the unseen footage and behind-the-scenes nuggets and interactions you may have missed. Having said that, Netflix appears to be doing a better job at keeping events and quotes within context and we’ve been able to spot fewer incongruities compared to earlier seasons.

Netflix is missing Christian Horner already

But if one thing has become clear, then it’s the fact that what has made Drive to Survive such a smash hit is the bitter rivalries, scheming and politicking to rival the likes of Game of Thrones and House of Cards. The eighth season can’t hide how much it hinges on pure beef between its protagonists.

As since-ousted Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says after he is booed by the crowd at the collective F1 75 launch, every story needs a pantomime villain. And purely in terms of storylines, after Horner’s mid-season exit, both F1 and Drive to Survive have become a poorer place as a result.

Horner regretted not being able to have a proper goodbye, but he was certainly given the send-off befitting both his role in F1 and on Drive to Survive, with the producers visiting him at his ranch to turn a stable into a makeshift interview booth.

In the aftermath of his shock post-British Grand Prix sacking, the emotion and bitterness were still raw as Horner lifted the lid on what had happened.

“[Max Verstappen’s] father has never been my biggest fan,” he said. “He’s been outspoken about me. But I don’t believe the Verstappens were responsible in any way. I think this was a decision made by Oliver Mintzlaff, with Helmut Marko advising from the sideline.”

Horner also suggested replacing Liam Lawson after just two races by Yuki Tsunoda was all Marko’s doing, which checks out if you know how little faith Horner had in the Japanese as a Red Bull Racing driver to begin with.

In any case, the series falls flat after the Red Bull-dominated fourth episode, and with fellow juggernauts Toto Wolff, Zak Brown and Fred Vasseur all being so chummy and nice to each other, Netflix will be hoping Horner’s F1 return elsewhere will materialise sooner rather than later.

The portrayal of McLaren’s intra-team title fight feels incomplete

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

McLaren’s sanitised title fight leaves a lot to be desired

Of course, the other big headline of the 2025 season was McLaren’s intra-team title fight between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, which was invaded by Verstappen after the papaya team committed one blunder after another.

The topic was the main focus of three of the eight episodes, but weirdly enough it still leaves a lot of crucial information out. Part one centres around Piastri’s early dominance, Norris’ struggles and his redeeming British Grand Prix win. But then we don’t revisit Woking until the final two episodes, which focus on McLaren’s mistakes in Las Vegas and Qatar and the Abu Dhabi title finale. What about Monza’s position swap, which left Piastri furious? What about Baku? What about Singapore and Austin?

None of those key moments between the two team-mates/rivals is even mentioned. It is not clear if this was a deliberate choice by the team, the production, or a matter of not having the right microphones hovering over the right conversations. But whether it was a deliberate choice or not, McLaren’s segments feel way too sanitised. But we do get team boss Zak Brown, who has now become a main character, mixing and mingling with the rich and famous at a swanky Vegas dinner, so there’s that.

DTS still does the job it’s intended to do

For Season 8 the makers have cut the series down from 10 to eight episodes, hovering between 36 and 51 minutes, a conscious decision to focus on quality over quantity. But still, as a whole, it feels a bit sparse.

A meandering first episode doesn’t exactly start with a bang – unless you count Gabriel Bortoleto farting into a microphone backstage – and later on there is a full episode dedicated to Carlos Sainz’s adjustment to Williams, which felt a bit overkill given how mildly interesting that was.

Criticism aside, Drive to Survive still largely ticks all the boxes, which is to introduce newcomers into the piranha club of F1. Alongside the brutal treatment of Lawson and Horner facing the axe, first-time viewers are introduced to F1’s other pantomime villain Flavio Briatore and his swift liquidation of Jack Doohan in favour of Franco Colapinto, only to then give the Argentine a robust bollocking in Italian over his lack of performance.

For F1 diehards, however, Drive to Survive struggles a bit more to be at its best, which is when it tells us stuff we didn’t already know or see. But when some of its biggest personalities go missing, the show either risks becoming too pedestrian or getting accused of stirring up drama artificially, so it can’t win.

Drive to Survive Season 8 is released on Netflix on Friday 27 February.

Drive to Survive Season 8 – Episode List

Episode 1 – New Kids on the Track
Episode 2 – Strictly Business
Episode 3 – The Number 1 Problem
Episode 4 – A Bull with No Horns
Episode 5 – The Sky’s the Limit
Episode 6 – The Duel
Episode 7 – What Happens in Vegas
Episode 8 – Call Me Chucky

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– The Motorsport.com Team

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